Then there is prolific and capricious skier Bode Miller, who recently rejoined the U.S. ski team and qualified for his third Olympics. He earned $1.3 million last year from sponsors, including Nike, Head and Superfund, and in prize money on the World Cup circuit to rank No. 6 on our list. His way to deal with lagging sponsorship for Winter Olympians? Go after the Summer Olympians' money. The 32-year-old recently announced he intends to compete in the U.S. Tennis Association's newly created national playoff tournament in hopes of landing a spot in the U.S. Open in August.

(AP) U.S. skiing star Lindsey Vonn revealed Wednesday she bruised her right shin while training last week and might skip some practice sessions at the Olympics but plans to race.

"I'm coming into these Olympics a lot more unsure than I was, um, a few weeks ago," Vonn said in an interview with NBC's "Today" show that aired Wednesday.

She said she got hurt in slalom training during pre-Olympic workouts in Austria and hasn't skied since.

"I at least want people to know what's going on and if I don't perform well, why that is," Vonn said, "but I can guarantee you that I'm going to do everything I can to be as ready as I can with this injury and still try to ski well."

Vonn is the two-time reigning overall World Cup champion, and is considered a multiple-medal threat at the Vancouver Olympics, which open Friday.

The first women's Alpine race is the super-combined on Sunday. The first official training run for women is Thursday.

"Hopefully this will not be a problem for her," U.S. Ski Team spokesman Tom Kelly wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

That will be the last victory of Rafa for quite some time.. With his joke mentality and pathetic game, I hope the disgusting player loses every single match next season. He's disgraceful. He should just retire. He's a joke.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia(AP)—A men’s luger from the former Soviet republic of Georgia died Friday after a crash during training, an Olympic official with direct knowledge of the situation said. The death cast a shocking pall over the Vancouver Olympics hours before the opening ceremony.

The official told The Associated Press that the International Olympic Committee received confirmation of Nodar Kumaritashvili’s death. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the 21-year-old luger’s family hadn’t been notified yet.

There was no immediate comment from Vancouver organizers, international luge officials or the International Olympic Committee. At the Whistler track, officials said the IOC and VANOC were preparing a joint statement to be released Friday afternoon.

Kumaritashvili lost control of his sled, went over the track wall and struck an unpadded steel pole near the finish line at Whistler Sliding Center.

Rescue workers were at his side within seconds, chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation started less than one minute after the crash, and he was quickly airlifted to a trauma center in Whistler.

Kumaritashvili struck the inside wall of the track on the final turn. His body immediately went airborne and cleared the ice-coated concrete wall along the left side of the sliding surface. His sled remained in the track, and it appeared his helmet visor skidded down the ice.

“It’s a very rare situation,” three-time Olympic champion and German coach Georg Hackl said before news of Kumaritashvili’s death broke, clearly shaken moments after seeing Kumaritashvili tended to furiously by medical officials.

Olympic competition in men’s luge is scheduled to begin Saturday. It’s unclear if that schedule would be affected.

It was unclear how fast Kumaritashvili was going, although many sliders have exceeded 90 mph on this course. The track is considered the world’s fastest and several Olympians recently questioned its safety. More than a dozen athletes have crashed during Olympic training for luge, and some questioned whether athletes from smaller nations - like Georgia - had enough time to prepare for the daunting track.

At the finish area, not far from where Kumaritashvili lost control, athletes, coaches and officials solemnly awaited word on Kumaritashvili before eventually being ushered away. Access to the crash area was closed within about 30 minutes.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Shiva Keshavan, a four-time Olympian from India.

The remainder of men’s training was canceled for the day, with VANOC officials saying in a release that an investigation was taking place to “ensure a safe field of play.”

Kumaritashvili competed in five World Cup races this season, finishing 44th in the world standings.

Earlier in the day, gold-medal favorite Armin Zoeggeler of Italy crashed, losing control of his sled on Curve 11. Zoeggeler came off his sled and held it with his left arm to keep it from smashing atop his body. He slid on his back down several curves before coming to a stop and walking away.

Training days in Whistler have been crash-filled. A Romanian woman was briefly knocked unconscious and at least four Americans - Chris Mazdzer on Wednesday, Megan Sweeney on Thursday and both Tony Benshoof and Bengt Walden on Friday in the same training session where Zoeggeler wrecked - have had serious trouble just getting down the track.

“I think they are pushing it a little too much,” Australia’s Hannah Campbell-Pegg said Thursday night after she nearly lost control in training. “To what extent are we just little lemmings that they just throw down a track and we’re crash-test dummies? I mean, this is our lives.”

I saw the pics. Fortunately our broadcaster decided to not show the pics every five minutes when they talked about the incident. There are other videos I never saw and which I am happy I didn't see even after 15+ years.

It really looks selecting Vancouver has a host city for WINTER Olympics was not the greatest idea. Maybe it looked good on paper. Good job COC and IOC.

No snow in the city, no snow at the moguls, shitty weather at the alpine hill.

Plus the yawn fest disaster of the opening ceremony: cauldron malfunction, destroying of Canada's national anthem, Bryan Adams lipsync malfunction, Sarah McLachlan... If it was not for the hot shirtless native wolf-man, this would be so far a complete fiasco.